Seasonings are essential for cooking. It creates deep flavors and marries together different ingredients to create balanced, flavorsome food. Seasonings can be sweet, savory, acid or bitter. Without them, dishes can be bland. What kind of seasonings that Indonesian usually have in their kitchen? Have they used international seasonings, or just use local ones? Let’s find out.

Period: 2017/11/10 – 2018/11/10
Respondents: 500 Indonesia men and women

Q: Do you like cooking? (SA)

According to the survey above, 40.8 percent quite like to cook. It usually depends on the mood or how busy they are. Cooking takes time, so people will do it when they have enough free time and feel want to do it. Especially now that there are online food ordering services, so there is no need to bother cooking. Also, nowadays young people prefer to consume food in restaurants or bars.

Q: How often do you cook? (SA)

About 38.8 percent cook every day. in Indonesia, those who can cook almost every day are housewives or people who have flexible hours of work. While for the rest of the choice, they cook on weekends, where they are off work, or when they are going to hold events.

Q: Do you consider seasoning when cooking? (SA)

The main function of seasoning in food processing gives a pleasant color, taste, and aroma to Indonesian cuisine. Even though the ingredients are the same, with different seasoning formulations, the resulting food’s flavor can vary. That’s why 48.4 percent really considered seasoning when cooking. Moreover, Indonesia is known for being one of the countries that have the best seasonings. Such as shallots, garlic, cloves, lemongrass, nutmegs, gingers, and dozens of other seasonings. No wonder Europeans first came to Indonesia to look for seasonings, before finally colonizing.

Q: What seasoning do you have in the kitchen? (MA)

Seasoning can be added at the beginning to allow the flavors to develop throughout cooking, or at the end of a recipe to subtly adjust the taste. Salt (84.6 percent), sugar (72.2 percent), sweet soy sauce (65.8 percent), and pepper (54.6 percent) are the seasoning that is always in every home. Those seasonings among the easiest to find and process when cooking, even for those who are not very good at cooking. One of the easiest examples of dishes made with only those seasoning is fried rice.

Q: What do you consider when buying seasoning? (MA)

About 52.2 percent consider a flavor when buying a seasoning. A seasoning that has a good flavor can elevate the taste of a dish with little effort and minimal cost. While the other two consider healthy (49.6 percent) and price (49 percent). In Indonesia, seasoning’s prices can rise dramatically, especially during the month of Ramadan and before Idul Fitri. Everyone will be busy cooking in large types and quantities, so the demand for seasonings increases.

The interesting thing is when Indonesians also pay attention to the presence of halal labels in seasoning packaging. Based on Licorice’s survey, about 24.4 percent considering it. This can be noted for seasoning companies.

Q: What international seasoning do you like? (MA)

Those who like to cook, are usually like to try new recipes, both local and international food. However, 35.2 percent answered that they never used international seasoning. While 25.2 percent like to use a seasoning from Japan.

Q: What seasonings from Japan do you know? (MA)

There are two Japanese seasonings who quite popular used by Indonesian. First, miso with 27.8 percent and wasabi with 27 percent. Some of the easiest dish to make from miso is miso soup. Some e-commerce sites that sell Japanese seasoning. While for foods that are popular using wasabi is sushi, where sushi is a favorite food for some Indonesian people, both sushi with raw and cooked fills.

The Conclusion

Some Indonesian still maintain a culture of cooking and do it almost every day. The presence of seasoning becomes very important because it will make every dish taste delicious. However, Indonesians rarely use international seasoning when cooking. Japan is a country whose seasoning is the most preferred and used by Indonesians. So, if you have an international seasoning business, your opportunity to introduce and sell Japanese seasoning is very wide open. You can open a special Japanese seasoning’s shop.